


Our Hopes and Expectations, Black Holes and Revelations

by duchessofthemoonbase



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Parallel Universes, Poe Dameron Falls from Canon into a Modern AU, Rey works at Target, and god help him, watch Poe Dameron marvel at 21st century earth customs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-11-16 03:11:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchessofthemoonbase/pseuds/duchessofthemoonbase
Summary: “You think this is some sort of joke?” Rey asks. “You build weird looking airplanes and crash them next to shopping centers dressed like an astronaut?”“Um,” Poe says. “Can you please just tell me where I—”“You’re in the suburbs of Cincinnati,” Rey says. “And I’m calling the authorities.”





	1. Chapter 1

“It should be a fairly routine mission,” General Organa explained, pacing around their hastily-built new base and looking as busy as ever. “Just reconnaissance. We need you to circle around Crait and see if there’s still a First Order presence there. If it looks safe, you can land and explore around a bit too, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, General,” Poe said, nodding obediently. After his attempted mutiny a couple of months back, he had been doing everything he could to win back Leia’s respect, and slowly but surely, it was working.

“Just don’t get too distracted,” she added with a knowing wink, and it was then that Poe noticed that Rey had walked past, and suddenly blushed.

“Of course,” he said. “Thank you, General.”

As soon as Leia was out of sight, Poe rushed outside to catch up with Rey, who was waiting for him with a smile. Poe grinned at her mischievously and pulled her into an empty hallway.

“Hello,” Poe said, placing his hands around her waist, and Rey wrapped her arms around his neck in return. “Hello yourself,” she said, and giggled as Poe backed her up against the wall and kissed her deeply. Rey sighed, loving the smell of his old leather jacket and the feeling of his much-neglected stubble against her cheeks.

This had been their routine for the past couple of months—as two of the most prominent members of the resistance, they only had time for these stolen moments—make-out sessions in the hallway, watching a holovid in the morning, a ten-minute lunch, a quickie in Poe’s x-wing—but every second of their newly-kindled romance had been perfect.

“So, what are you up to today?” Poe asked as Rey fiddled with the collar of his jacket.

“More training, by myself, as usual,” she said. “I might help Rose with some repairs later. And you?”

“Another mission,” Poe said.

“Dangerous?”

“Shouldn’t be,” Poe said. “Just circling back to Crait and checking out the situation there. Knowing the First Order, they’re all gone, but Leia wants me to check it out just to be sure.” He kissed Rey on the cheek and pulled her close to him again. “It’ll be fine, I should be back by tomorrow.”

“You better be, Commander Dameron,” Rey teased. Poe went in to kiss her again, and Rey sighed. Poe couldn’t help but be proud of the way Rey acted around him—there was something satisfying about making the fiercest person in the resistance melt into a puddle under his touch.

“Pity you have to leave,” Rey said, holding back a moan as Poe began sucking on her neck. “I’d really love to—”

_“Ahem?”_

They both looked up to see General Organa staring at them. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time she had caught them full-on making out in the hallway.

“Sorry, General,” Rey said, blushing scarlet.

Leia just sighed nostalgically and nodded her head. “Brings me back. Poe, you better be on your way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Poe said, grinning as he gave Rey one last kiss on the cheek.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Leia said to Rey, smiling, and they waved him off as he ran towards his x-wing.

 

***

 

Poe took off into the stars, leaning back in his seat as he took in the view. Although he had a reputation for thriving in the most daring moments of battle, in reality he was most happy when he was flying a low-stakes mission like this. He was never more content in these moments; soaring through the air with the universe at his fingertips.

Of course, these days, his thoughts often drifted back to Rey.

_“I’m Poe.”_

_“Rey.”_

_“I know.”_

It had all happened so fast after that, the brief moments of their acquaintance spinning out of control until they couldn’t get enough of each other. Poe knew they were at war, and that emotions were running high, and that perhaps it wasn’t the best thing for the resistance to have their best pilot and their lone Jedi falling head over heels in love with each other, but anytime Poe saw Rey smile at him, all of his logic went completely out the window.

_One night Poe had snuck into Rey’s bed for the night, and afterward, he had held her close to him as he absentmindedly touched the ring chained around his neck._

_“One day,” he said, “We’re just going to hop in my x-wing and fly away. See everything.”_

_“Everything?” Rey asked, giggling._

_“Everything. Worlds and galaxies and universes that you can’t even imagine, sweetheart."_

Poe smiled at the memory as he checked his navigation. He was about halfway to Crait at this point, and the rest of the trip would be smooth flying.

That is, until he felt his x-wing lurch.

“Woah,” Poe said, looking down at the controls. “What?”

His ship was flying backward.

Poe started pressing at the controls frantically and tried to get the ship to lurch forward again, but it was no use.

“What the hell?” Poe exclaimed, beginning to panic. In all his years of flying, he had never been in a situation like this. He was being pulled backward faster and faster, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

Was he in the beam of some sort of ship? Poe thought to himself, panicking. Did the First Order freeze his controls? Were they capturing him? Were they…

Poe looked out of the edge of the window and saw that whatever had caught his x-wing was not sentient, but some sort of space formation. He was being drawn in by what looked to be a purplish-green cloud that was black in the center.

“Damn it!” Poe said, pressing at all of his controls. He even tried jumping to lightspeed, but it was no use. The cloud kept pulling him backward farther and farther, and the ship was entirely out of his control.

He had heard legends of things like this—wormholes, black holes, and things that nature, but they weren’t the kinds of things that pilots took seriously. Besides, if you ended up sucked into one, you were as good as…

 

***

 

Poe was upside down.

The smell was horrible. Fire and burning rubber and disaster. How long ago had he crashed?

_Crashed. Oh shit. I’ve crashed._

Poe pulled himself up and pulled a broken, burning piece of x-wing off his leg. Besides some minor cuts, burns, and an ache in his back, he was miraculously okay. He had been sucked into some sort of dangerous space formation and it had landed him…

…here?

He should be dead, or in the hands of the First Order, or somewhere else insanely dangerous, but wherever he’s landed seems pretty okay in comparison. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s surrounded by trees—not a deep forest, as he can hear ships or speeders of some kind zooming past nearby and there are lights in the distance. Civilization. He can get a ride back to the base, back to—

“Freeze and put your hands up.”

 _“Rey!?”_ Poe says, and he’s grinning like a madman. “What—”

“I _said_ freeze and put your hands _up,_ ” Rey says, and then Poe realizes that something is very, very off. Rey is pointing some sort of tiny blaster at him and she doesn’t seem to recognize him at all. She’s wearing blue pants, a red vest with a white bullseye printed on it, and has her hair down around her shoulders instead of in her usual three buns.

Most noticeably, she looks like she would not hesitate to kill him.

“Okay, okay,” Poe says, putting his hands up. “I’m unarmed, it’s fine, I’ve just crashed. If you could just tell me what planet this is and where I can hitch a ride back, I’ll be on my way, and—”

“You think this is some sort of joke?” Rey asks. “You build weird looking airplanes and crash them next to shopping centers dressed like an astronaut?”

“Um,” Poe says. “Can you please just tell me where I—”

“You’re in the suburbs of Cincinnati,” Rey says. “And I’m calling the authorities.”

“Wait, Rey,” Poe pleads. “Seriously, what the hell is going on?”

Rey freezes and turns around. “How do you know my name?”

Poe stands up and gives her a wink. “Well,” he says, “If you turn me in you’ll never find out, will you?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched the season premiere of Jane the Virgin before I wrote this chapter and whooooo boy does it show.

Rey had often found herself wandering around the store on her night shifts wishing that something would happen…anything to save her from her boredom and make life a bit more interesting.

However, this was not exactly what she had in mind.

She held the barcode scanner back up to the man’s face. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Yeah, okay, got it,” he said, picking himself up out of the rubble pile. Rey walked around and stomped out the few fires that were remaining from the crash. His plane was as good as gone.

She figured he was one of those reclusive, techy, mad scientist types—a guy with tons of money who amused himself by building flying machines and crashing them for better or worse. She wasn’t sure if that was a type of person she admired or not—although she admired innovation and daring, the course of her life had taught her to put practicality first.

Although she’d be lying if she said she didn’t think he was extremely handsome.

“Look,” the man said. “I’m really sorry if I’ve caused any damage, or interrupted anything, I just need—”

“Who are you?”

“Captain Poe Dameron of the Resistance.”

“Um…okay? I’m Rey.”

“I know,” the man smiled at her warmly, and Rey was torn between feeling suspicious and letting her heart melt into his hands.

“That’s what I don’t get,” Rey said. “I’ve never met you before in my life.”

“It’s um…well I don’t really understand it myself.”

“Enlighten me.”

“My girlfriend, back home…she’s you.”

“She’s me?”

“Her name is Rey. She looks like you, she talks like you, everything, I don’t…”

Rey raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Is this some sort of…pick-up line?”

“No, I swear, I-”

“Where are you from, anyway?”

“Well originally I’m from Yavin 4, but I’ve been with the Resistance for quite a while, and obviously that information is classified.”

“The Resistance? You mean like, when people protest against Trump?”

“What’s Trump?”

“Have you hit your head?”

Poe looked down at the ground. “Honestly, Rey, I don’t know. I went through some sort of wormhole or black hole or something, and I’ve never even heard of Cincinnati or what system it’s in, and—”

“You’re talking like you’re an alien,” Rey said, who was still holding the barcode scanner up at him.

“I don’t know what I am anymore! I don’t know where I am, I don’t know why you don’t recognize me, I don’t—”

“We have a Comic-Con in April if you’re that into this stuff, you know.”

Poe sighed. “Listen, I know you don’t believe me, but can you please just give me the benefit of the doubt, just for a day? So I can get back on my feet and get home?”

“Fine,” Rey said. “How are you at lifting boxes?”

“I can do it.”

“Alright then, Captain Poe Dameron from outer space. You can help me out today.”

 

***

 

Poe stumbled after Rey out of the small section of trees and into a brightly lit area. There were rows and rows of land speeders of kinds that Poe had never encountered before, even in his extensive travels.

They were approaching a large building with a red bullseye on it. The bullseye had been labeled as the target, which Poe figured should have been self-explanatory.

“Is this where you train with weapons?” Poe asked, and Rey looked at him blankly.

“No. It’s a Target. They sell everything. I’m the night manager and I work some shifts during the day as well.”

“Huh,” Poe said, and followed Rey inside.

Poe squinted, struck by the brightness of the lights and the sheer number of things that were begging to be looked at. Cincinnati was clearly no poor outer rim planet. He had never seen a place so clean and organized, full of shiny new things all stacked in rows.

Rey looked at him quizzically. “You can stop staring now. Either you’re a really good actor or you’ve truly never been in a Target before.”

“What?” Poe said, still distracted.

“A Walmart, at least? A grocery store?”

Some of the things in the building were recognizable to Poe…clothing and tools looked familiar, although slightly off in ways that made Poe feel uneasy. Things were so bright here, and condensed into smaller packages. The clothes had loud, bright colors that he’d never seen off of a place like Naboo, and the food was all wrapped up and packaged. Whereas on Yavin 4 a farmer would have a stand of fruit, here the food was sealed in plastic, stacked and labeled.

“You should sit down,” Rey said, pulling out a metal folding chair. “I’ll find some boxes for you to unpack in a minute.”

Poe watched as Rey smiled at him and went off into a storage area. Any means of communicating with the Resistance had been destroyed in the crash; he could already tell that he was far enough away from home that getting back would be more complicated than just finding a pilot to hitch a ride with. It looked like he was stuck here.

With her.

Poe was used to the feeling of his heart speeding up when he saw her, but what he wasn’t used to, he thought as Rey wheeled out a cart of boxes, was the sensation of his heart breaking at the same time.

“You really…” Poe said again, as if this time it would be any different. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No,” Rey said. “I’m sorry.”

Poe looked down at the floor and rested his head in his hands.

“Did you love her?”

Poe looked up at Rey, admiring the curiosity and compassion shining in her eyes—and then felt a sudden twist of anguish when he once again processed the emptiness behind them.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY WERE ROOMMATES!!!!

Poe had been in the storage room for the last three hours, stacking and unpacking boxes as he thought over his dilemma. He hadn’t learned much about his current circumstances; however, he did learn about the foreign wonders of popcorn, vacuum cleaners, and something (perhaps an occult religious object) called a tickle-me-elmo.

Rey finally came in as he was unpacking a box of what were (thankfully, very familiar-looking) blue pants. She still had a bit of wariness in her eyes, but there was a sense of concern, too.

“Hey,” Rey said, looking around the room. “You actually did all the work.”

“Yeah,” Poe replied. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Rey said. “I don’t really know how to make sense of you.”

“There’s not much else to do,” Poe said, smiling at her. “Do you think you could direct me to where I could catch a ship around here?”

“Well, the nearest water is…”

“To another planet, I mean.”

Rey looked like she was going to laugh again, but stifled it. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Captain Poe Dameron, but we don’t really have commercial space travel around here.”

“Well, where can I go to get a ship then?”

“I really don’t know.”

“What planet _does_ have easy space travel, then?”

“We’re the only planet with intelligent life as far as we know of on Earth…in this galaxy…I mean, I guess we were until you showed up. That is, if you’re telling the truth.”

_Earth._ Poe froze nervously. She didn’t look like she was kidding. “There’s…there’s no way to space travel?” He was beginning to panic. “But all of the stuff I’ve been unpacking…it looks so nice! How are you not a civilized world?”

“I mean…there’s NASA, but that’s a government organization. Just a few people going up to space every once and a while in the name of science. And not far.”

Poe leaned against a crate and tried to calm down. Even in the tiny cockpit of his x-wing, he had never felt claustrophobic, but he did now.

There was no clear path home…and no way back to Rey.

“Anyways,” Rey said, “I came to get you because my shift is up…I usually go home about now.”

“Oh…” Poe said.

“Look,” Rey said. “I’m still not sure if I trust your story. But I can’t leave you here. You can come back to my apartment with me for a while to get yourself situated, okay?”

“Thank you,” Poe said. “Seriously, thank you.”

He followed her out the door as they walked towards her speeder, which was small, blue, and more dilapidated than the ones surrounding it. As they walked, he had to fight back the habit of taking her hand in his own.

_It’s not her_ , Poe reminded himself as he slid into the side of the strange-looking speeder, _don’t fool yourself._

***

 

All Rey could remember was foster care.

She remembered the torture of that wretched impermanence, the jolt of fear when she was told she’d have to go somewhere else—to another place where she would have to learn to survive all over again.

She had had parents, once, but drugs had numbed them until she was nothing more than a crying doll to them, abandoned and hungry in the corner of their apartment. Or so she was told.

It had been nothing but survival from the very beginning. She had learned the hard way not to trust people.

So why now? Why was she trusting this man with the most ridiculous, bullshit story she’d ever heard?

Rey sighed. She knew.

Rey was lonely. She had never really had a family, and had maintained some friendships and boyfriends at certain points, but they had all faded away with time and circumstances, none of them important enough to stick. It had been the same routine ever since Rey left high school. Get up, chug some coffee, go to Target, and go home.

But this man, this _Captain Poe Dameron,_ needed her.

And not only did he seem to need her for survival, he looked at her like he _loved_ her. And no one had ever looked at Rey like that. Ever.

_It’s because you look like his girlfriend, remember?_ Rey told herself as she merged onto the highway. _That’s the only reason he can’t take his eyes off you._

_His outer space girlfriend,_ Rey thought, tensing a bit. _Come on, I mean, do you really believe that?_

Judging by the way Poe was perched on the passenger seat, she just might. He looked equal parts terrified and fascinated, and couldn’t keep his eyes off…well, off of everything. He looked to Rey, to the other cars, to the way Rey operated the steering wheel. His reactions looked a little bit too alien to be fake.

But _how?_

“So…um,” Rey said. “You’ve never been in a car before, have you?”

“One of these things?” Poe asked, gesturing around the car. “No.”

Rey just burst into laughter.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?”

Rey sighed. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Alright.”

“I want to,” Rey said, and they met eyes for a moment until Rey felt her face begin to grow warm, and quickly turned back to the road. “But it’s just too impossible. These things don’t happen to me, anyway. I’m nobody.”

Poe shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Yes,” Poe said. “But I know a girl an awful lot like you, and if you’re anything like her, you’re more important than anyone and anything.”

 Rey laughed again. “Is this your girlfriend who looks like me and has the same name?”

"You bet.”

“How _much_ does she look like me? Like is it just a resemblance, or…”

“Like identical twins.”

“And her name is Rey, spelled R-E-Y?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t think that’s…weird?” Rey asked.

“I never said I didn’t think it was weird,” Poe said. “In fact, that’s the weirdest part of anything I’ve seen today.”

“And the odds that your ship crashes right where I would find you?”

“Yeah.”

“You kind of see how your story sounds unbelievable now, right?”

“Yeah,” Poe said again, sighing as the car pulled into the lot. “But I’m just telling you what happened.”

Rey lived in an apartment in a run-down part of the suburbs, and as she made her way up to the third floor, she wondered if she was being an idiot for letting this strange man into her apartment. _He’ll murder me, and when they do the documentary, everyone will gawk at how stupid I was for believing this guy was from outer space and letting him into my apartment._

Rey put the key into the lock. “Make yourself at home.”

 

***

 

The first thing Poe noticed was the green.

The apartment was cramped and looked like it was on the verge of falling apart, but it sure did have a lot of plants. Ferns in corners and flowers hanging from the ceiling and tiny cactuses perched on the windowsill.

“Poe?” Rey asked. “Are you okay?”

“There’s so much green,” he gasped, practically out of breath.

“Yeah well, I like plants, and—”

“Her quarters back home,” Poe said, stuttering and on the verge of tears. “It’s…it’s exactly like this.”

Poe wandered up to a fern and stroked one of the leaves gently. The species of plants, of course, were very different, but the room looked the same. This Rey even had the same habit of leaving half-empty glasses of water on the tables.

“I’ll make us some lunch, okay?” Rey said, looking concerned, and wandered over to the kitchen area, where she pulled a blue box out of a cabinet. “This Rey, um, _your Rey,_ I mean…what is she like?”

Poe smiled as he hovered near Rey, watching her cook. “She’s kind, and tough…and brave and loving, and stubborn…oh, and she’s _really_ pretty, like unbelievably pretty…” Poe said, and only then noticed that this Rey had blushed a deep scarlet red when he said it.

“…and she’s a Jedi.”

“A what?”

“Finally,” Poe said. “Something I know and you don’t!”

“Alright,” Rey said, pouring some small yellow tubes into boiling water. “What’s a Jedi?”

Poe stopped for a second, and realized that the concept of a Jedi was a bit difficult to sum up in a few sentences. “Well,” he said. “It’s kind of a spiritual and philosophical thing, but at the same time, you also have light—um, like, these really big swords made of light that you fight people with.”

Rey stared at him blankly. “You’re saying there’s a girl who looks exactly like me. In _space_. Fighting people with… _light swords_ …?!?”

“Yeah,” Poe said, biting his lip. “I um…now that I say it out loud…I hear how it sounds.”

He watched as Rey mixed the freshly-boiled yellow tubes with some white milk and bright orange powder. “Here,” she said, handing him a bowl. “Sorry, I’m not exactly a gourmet cook.”

Poe stared down at the bowl curiously. Whatever it was, he liked the smell of it. “What is it?”

Rey laughed. “It’s um…expired Kraft macaroni and cheese we couldn’t sell at Target. You’ve never had it?”

“No,” Poe said, taking a forkful and breaking into a pleased smile. “Wow…and clearly I’ve been missing out.”

Rey grinned as she watched him eat, and Poe felt his heart swell painfully in his chest. Just yesterday, he and Rey had been sitting in the cafeteria, and she had smiled at him just like that as he tore into another piece of bread.

“Are you tired?” Rey asked. “I was thinking we could get you cleaned up and into bed.”

“Oh,” Poe said. “Yeah, I guess that would be a good idea.” He _was_ tired, and he still had some minor cuts and blood on him from the crash. Right now, he was a bit distracted by the fact that Rey, despite clearly not believing a word of his story, was actually going to let him stay the night here.

Rey pulled an air mattress out of the closet and began to set it up in the corner with some sheets. “You can go shower,” Rey said, pointing to a tiny bathroom.

“Is that like…a fresher?” Poe asked, once again realizing he had no idea how to orient himself in this strange new world.

“Maybe?” Rey said, and showed him what was obviously a fresher under a different name, and taught him what controls to use to turn it on. She found him a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt for him to change into when he was done, and left them next to the air mattress. “Freshen up and then I can disinfect and bandage up those cuts, okay?”

“Alright,” Poe said. “Thank you. Seriously. Thanks.”

“Of course,” Rey said, and let him go clean up.

 

***

 

Rey pulled the last corner of the sheet cover over the mattress and sighed with relief. Done.

“Rey?” Came a voice from the bathroom. “Um, Rey?”

Rey froze. “Yeah?”

“I can’t turn the fresher off!” Poe yelled under a stream of water.

“Turn the handle to the right!”

“I am!”

“The other handle!”

“It’s not doing anything!”

_Ohmygod,_ Rey thought. _I have to go in there._

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: I had this happen to my shower in a hotel and had to get dressed and go down to the lobby soaking wet to get a maintenance guy to turn it off. Was not a very sexy experience. :(

“Hold on!” Rey said. “I’ll be in to help in just a second!”

“It’s fine!” Poe yelled over the noise of the water. “I’m, er…covered.”

Rey opened the door to find Poe standing in the corner of the tub, the white shower curtain wrapped around his waist.

_Not covered enough._

“Let me see,” Rey said, crouching under the stream of water. She tugged on the handle but it was jammed into place. “It happens sometimes,” she explained. “This apartment is ancient. You just have to unscrew this bit here and it’ll turn off.”

Rey ran outside to grab her screwdriver and catch her breath—and prayed she wasn’t showing how flustered she was at seeing Poe without a shirt.

“Sorry,” Poe mumbled when she returned. “I’m really, really sorry again, I can’t thank you enough, I—”

“It’s fine,” Rey said, kneeling down to fiddle with the shower handle. “Like I said, this has happened before.  It’s not your fault.”

Rey looked up to give him a polite smile and then quickly regretted it; the sudden sight of his half-naked body making her instantly blush. Poe was tan and lightly muscular, and a few scars were scattered across his chest—he was clearly a man who had lived through war.

_Yeah_ , Rey thought. _Space war? Really?_

“Why don’t you tell me what to do and I can fix it,” Poe suggested. “You’re getting all wet.”

“No, no, I’m almost done,” Rey assured him, screwing a nail back in. She had fixed this shower handle ten times at least, but never with the pressure of a gorgeous man hovering over her, shower curtain draped over his torso like a statue of a Greek god.

Rey pushed the handle down with a smile and listened to the water turn off with a satisfying _thunk_. Phew. Now she could get out of here and—

Rey stood up, hair and clothes completely soaked, only to find Captain Poe Dameron staring at her like she was every star and sun in the galaxy.

 

***

 

It took every ounce of Poe’s resolve not to kiss her right there and then.

He remembered the first time he had seen Rey in action, lifting away rocks so they could escape obliteration on Crait. Poe had been so sure at one point that day that it would be his last…but when he had marveled at the look of concentration on the young Jedi’s face, he had seen something else.

He saw hope.

She may have only been fixing a broken fresher handle, but her look of concentration was the same—her complete focus, the way she winced as she bent over to tighten the screw. It was all so familiar that Poe could scarcely breathe.

And now she was here, standing mere inches away, smiling at him shyly with wet strands of brown hair circling her face.

Back home, they had done it in the fresher a couple of times. She had looked just like that when he had finished making love to her, her face flushed and her wet hair falling around her shoulders.

“Um,” Poe said, after realizing he had been staring. “Thanks, I’ll uh...”

“I’ll get you a towel,” Rey said, leaving and tossing one in along with a change of clothes.

“Thanks,” Poe said as she shut the door behind her.

He leaned his head against the wall and tried to calm down. What were the rules for this sort of thing? Would he be cheating on Rey if he did something with…well, with Rey? Would he ever be able to get back? What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Poe toweled off and put on the spare clothes that Rey had given him. When he walked outside, he had a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one.

“Hey,” Poe said, walking outside to find Rey perched on the sofa with a cup of tea. “I have a request.”

“Alright.”

“Tomorrow morning. We need to do a…I don’t know, a crash course about where we come from. You teach me what life is like on Earth, and I’ll tell you about my life,” Poe said. “Because, look, If there’s no space travel here, I don’t know when I’m getting back. I could be here awhile. I need to…I need to learn how to be independent here and not be a burden on you, in case I can’t get back.”

“You’re not a burden on me, Poe,” Rey said. “It’s fine. I can get you some work at Target and you can crash here for a while.”

“Thank you,” Poe said. “Seriously Rey, thank you so—”

“It’s fine, really,” Rey said. “I could use some company anyway.”

Poe smiled at her in warm, grateful relief and let out a yawn.

“Get some rest,” Rey said. “We can do Earth 101 in the morning.”

And with that, Poe settled onto the air mattress, watched Rey disappear into her bedroom, and fell into a deep sleep.

 

***

Rey couldn’t sleep.

She had never had a night in this apartment when she wasn’t alone, and all of a sudden there was a stranger sleeping outside her door; a handsome stranger with an incredible story that she had no reason to trust. If she listened closely, she could hear him breathe.

If this was a scam, if he was a fraud, he was certainly playing the long game. He had had plenty of opportunities to steal her money or murder her or whatever it is bad people do. But he was polite. He had done hours of work at Target. He had apologized over and over for inconveniencing her.

And Rey _liked_ him.

_You’re losing your mind._

She thought back to the moment where she had stood up in the shower and met Poe’s eyes—they had looked so warm, and kind, and they _knew_ her in some way that she couldn’t explain.

Rey rewound the scene in her mind, pressing play at the moment when she had stood across from him, and decided to take the scene in a different direction.

It would have been so easy to kiss him, right then, and he probably wouldn’t have minded either—he looked like he wanted her, or at least, desperately wanted someone who looked just like her, very far away. He would have given in, pressed her body against the cold tiles, let the shower curtain fall away from his waist, kissed her like she was that girl he thought about when he got that dreamy look in his eyes…

Rey slipped a hand between her legs.

_What have I gotten myself into?_

***

 

Rey was awakened once again by a series of sad beeps.

“Still no word?” she asked BB-8, and the tiny droid whined and tilted his little head down.

“I know,” Rey said. “I’m worried too. It’s been a week.”

Rey knew that this was a risk of falling in love in the Resistance—they lost people all the time. She had seen the look on Paige Tico’s girlfriend’s face when she found out that Paige wasn’t coming back. It wasn’t something she liked to think about…and wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d risk feeling until she’d met Poe.

But when you fall in love, what can you do? And besides, as Rose had said, they would win by saving what they loved. And she loved Poe.

Rey followed BB-8 into the cafeteria for a quick breakfast before she started training, which hadn’t been going well since Poe went missing. Her powers of concentration seemed like they were gone for good…all she could think about was where Poe was, if he was okay, and the feeling of her heart starting to ache, perhaps starting to grieve.

BB-8 followed close behind her as Rey picked up a few slices of bread and fruit. The droid had stayed at Rey’s side nearly every second since they lost contact with Poe, either to cheer Rey up, have a pal that was going through the same pain, or a bit of both. She appreciated the support as she sat down to eat, the eyes of everyone there looking at her with a mix of pity and concern.

“Maybe today we’ll hear something,” Rey said, and BB-8 sighed sadly, tilting his head down with a tiny whirr.

“You’re his best buddy,” Rey assured him, patting his head. “And I’m his best girl. He’ll always find his way back to us.”


	5. Chapter 5

Rey tiptoed her way over to the kitchen, being careful not to wake Poe, who was still sound asleep on the air mattress outside her door. She put on the tea kettle and started to make some scrambled eggs with the hope that the light commotion would rouse him. Sure enough, five minutes later, Poe was stumbling towards her; his hair mussed and a sleepy smile on his face.

“Morning,” Poe mumbled. “Thanks for letting me stay again.”

“Of course,” Rey answered, poking at the eggs with a spatula. “I’m just making us some breakfast.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Poe said. “But thanks.”

Rey put down two steaming cups of English breakfast with the plates of eggs and motioned for Poe to sit down across from her. She decided she liked the way he looked when he got up—Poe seemed to be a fighter, usually, and the softness of morning brought out the kindness and warmth in his eyes.

“So,” Rey said, hoping she wasn’t embarrassing herself with her over-preparedness for the task. “I made some notes.”

“Notes?”

“For ‘Earth 101’.”

“Ah,” Poe said. “Well, I’m excited. I love learning about new worlds and cultures.”

“I’m afraid I’m not the most cultured person.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Rey shrugged, trying not to get too personal too soon. “I’ve always been too busy working to really do…music or movies or television or whatever. I haven’t seen…well, any of those movies that people get mad at you if you haven’t seen. I don’t know any bands. It’s kind of just been me.”

“Movies?” Poe asked.

“Like um…a moving picture with sound, and a story?”

“We have those too,” Poe added. “Holovids.”

“Okay,” Rey said. “See, that’s one thing we have in common.”

“So I guess since you have the detailed notes you’re going first?”

Rey took a sip of her tea and smiled. “I’m going first.”

Rey pulled out pictures and maps first. She showed Poe the solar system, the Earth, their single moon. She showed him a map of the United States of America, of Ohio, and of Cincinnati. There was so much information to cover that she didn’t know precisely where to start. She showed him the different continents and countries and gave him a general overview of world history for the past thousand years or so. She ran him through what a normal day looked like for her. She pointed at the things in her apartment that Poe couldn’t identify, and usually found that he had his own version of the device under a completely different name.

“By the way,” Rey added. “Why are we communicating in the same language? There’s no way English could have evolved in the exact same way in a different galaxy.”

“Well we call it something else there, but…” Poe said, furrowing his brow. “To be honest, I thought of that too, and it is a little suspicious.”

“It is…” Rey said, putting down her notepad. “There’s a lot about both of us being here that doesn’t make sense.”

Poe sighed. “Alright, well, I guess you can tell me more stuff along the way. I guess it’s my turn to explain.”

“Alright,” Rey said. “Tell me about the world of Captain Poe Dameron.”

Poe smiled and leaned back in his chair, and she could see a touch of homesickness in his eyes. “Well, it all started on a far-away planet called Yavin 4, a very long time ago…”

 

***

 

Rey had pulled some strings and hired Poe at Target, and his first official shift started right after lunch. Rey had taken the effort to train him personally, teaching him how to be a cashier, how to use American Earth currency, and how to identify any objects that he didn’t already know the names of.

Poe was still mostly doing work in the storage room, where he didn’t have to converse much with other co-workers and had a smaller risk of freezing up when a customer asked him a question that made absolutely no sense to him.

It was repetitive, dull work; stacking and unpacking these boxes, placing them on shelves—and it gave Poe a lot of time to think. Too much time, actually. It was one thing to ponder over your problems when there were actions to be taken, but here, there was really nothing he could do. He could live with Rey and survive until things became clearer…and that was it.

The coincidences began to get more and more suspicious to him over time. Why _did_ he and Rey speak the same language? And of all the places in the universe he could have landed, why _here_ with a girl who looked and talked and acted so much like…

Poe shuddered as he sliced open another package with the box cutter. If he had actually been gone this long, Rey must be worried sick about him. The entire Resistance would be in a panic.

And he still had no way to communicate with them. No way to let Rey know he was okay. That he was alive.

Rey would be hurting. She would be hurting and grieving somewhere far away, while he was here on another world with a girl who seemed to be her clone; beginning to pine after her like a traitor. Or pining after _his_ Rey, in some twisted, circuitous way. He couldn’t tell the difference anymore, and it was beginning to drive him insane.

 

***

 

“Rey, hi,” said Sarah, the tiny girl who spent most of her time working the cash register. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

“So, um,” Sarah mumbled. “You hired that new guy, right? Poe? The hot one?”

“Uh, yeah, I did,” Rey said.

“So like…what’s up with him? Where is he from? Because he’s a little…odd.”

“Oh,” Rey said, feigning surprise. “Really? I didn’t know, I…I haven’t noticed.”

“I mean,” Sarah said. “I would say he was hopelessly stupid…he didn’t know what a stapler was, for Christ’s sake…but he sure does know a lot about a lot of other things. He did some calculations on the computer earlier that were beyond me, and I was a math major.”

“Huh. I mean, I don’t really know him, I—”

“He said he lives with you.”

“Oh,” Rey said, suddenly blushing. “I mean he does, but it’s recent, and we haven’t really had time to talk, so I mean…he just needed a place to stay, and I could use some extra rent money, so I sort of—”

“So are you guys…?”

“Are we…?”

“Dating? Sleeping together? Is he good? Because he looks like he—”

“Woah,” Rey said. “Absolutely not. We’re just friends, that’s all.”

“Just friends.” Sarah repeated. “Okay. Because when you walked by about an hour ago while he was working the cash registers with me he looked at you like…well, I’ve never seen a guy look at a girl like that except in a movie.”

“I don’t know, I uh…I have to go check on something. I’ll talk to you later.”

Rey rushed away from Sarah, past the DVDs and Men’s Clothing, until she got to the storage room. Her face still felt flushed from embarrassment. She and Poe weren’t a _thing,_ and if they were anything at all it was something that defied categorization altogether.

“Hey,” Rey said, coming up to Poe as he unloaded a box of socks. “It’s about time to go home.”

Poe lit up the second he saw her, smiling in a way that should have made Rey feel uncomfortable, or guilty, but it didn’t. It just made her glow inside. _What about the other girl?_ she thought, _This other girl who is so much like you? What would she think of him looking at you like that?_

“About that,” Poe said. “I have an idea.”

Rey raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“I want to thank you. For taking me in. For showing me around, all of it. Very few people would be that nice to a complete stranger.”

“Um, thanks,” Rey muttered, afraid of what he was going to say next.

“And the other day, when you were teaching me about Earth, you said you were ‘uncultured’, and hadn’t really been out much, and I thought we could change that. Let’s go out somewhere.”

“I don’t know, I—”

“It would come out of my first paycheck, of course. Please, Rey, let me do this for you.”

_Is this a date?_ Rey thought, panicking a little, but she couldn’t think of a decent excuse to get herself out of this. He lived with her, so she could hardly lie.

“Alright,” Rey said, letting herself break into a smile. “I guess that would be fun.”

“There’s plenty of fun stuff to do right around the Target,” Poe said. “That cashier, Sarah, was telling me about this restaurant with…burgers? She said that was American food, so as long as you like burgers, we could do that. And there’s a movie theater next door, so we could watch a movie, since you said you hadn’t seen very many.”

“I’ve never seen a movie in the theater, actually,” Rey said. “Never really had the spare money or someone to go with.”

“Let’s do it then!” Poe said. “Let’s go now.”

Rey smiled and followed him out the door, figuring that she may as well roll with this. A handsome man was treating her to dinner and movie. She had just gotten off of a long workday. Why not?

 

***

 

Poe wiped his hands on a napkin and sighed. “Wow.”

Rey giggled softly. “Good, right?”

“Definitely,” Poe said, picking up yet another French fry. “And you’re sure this is a plant? Because plants where I’m from do not taste this good. Trust me.”

“Most of ours don’t either,” Rey explained. “That one is just prepared in a special way so it does.”

Rey took the last few bites of her mushroom burger as Poe waited politely, letting her take her time.

Poe liked hamburgers. He liked French fries. He liked the bubbly sweet brownish drink called Coca-Cola that Rey warned him would rot his teeth. Rey said the restaurant they were in was styled in a way that was reminiscent of how these restaurants had looked fifty or sixty years ago. It only served as a reminder to Poe that this new world he was inhabiting was so much more complex than it appeared on first sight. He still had so much yet to learn. He had seen the looks on his coworker’s faces today when he didn’t know what they were talking about or couldn’t follow their directions. He still had a long way to go.

But how much of this should he be learning anyway? Would he be getting back home soon or not?

“Alright,” Rey said with a satisfied grin as she cleaned up her spot at the table. “I’m all finished. Ready for the movie?”

“Sure,” Poe said, suddenly feeling guilty for how quickly her smile was melting him into a puddle.

The two of them walked down the street towards the theater and through the doors; where there was a booth where people paid for entry. Even though Rey had never been to see a movie, she knew how the process worked, and even showed Poe how to sneak in snacks from Target in her purse. (“You wouldn’t believe the prices here,” she had said).

“What movie do you want to see?” Poe asked, looking at the list of titles lit up above his head.

“I don’t know,” Rey said. “Like I said, I don’t really know movies.”

“People at work were talking about that one,” Poe said, pointing at the screen. “ _Avengers: Endgame_. What’s that about?”

“Um…” Rey said. “It’s like…superheroes? People who…fly around in capes, and that sort of thing? Action stuff. I think?”

The man behind the ticket booth stared at them both incredulously. “Go see it, it’s good,” he said.

“That settles it,” Poe said. “Two tickets please.”

They collected their tickets, handed them to the girl at the door, and made their way inside the dim light of the theater, taking seats towards the middle.

“These places are so fancy now,” Rey said, as Poe figured out how to push a button to lean his seat back. “It’s ridiculous.” She squirmed in her chair. “I’m going to the bathroom; will you be alright?”

“Yeah,” Poe said. “But won’t you miss the start of the movie?”

“It’s just the trailers,” Rey said. “Who cares.”

Poe looked at her blankly.

“The ads,” Rey explained. “They’re little advertisements for movies that are coming up.”

“Got it,” Poe said, smiling as Rey handed him a package of candy from her purse, and watched as she walked out the door.

All in all, so far, the experience of an Earth ‘movie’ didn’t feel that different from a nice holovid projection back home. Poe relaxed into his seat as he watched some ads instructing him to turn off his communication device, to know where the emergency exits were, all the usual things he was used to hearing when boarding a ship back home.

Then, the trailers started. He watched a funny one about a boy in a tight red and blue suit who could swing from buildings. Then there was one about talking creatures, ones who looked like large, majestic Loth-cats living in the desert with a bunch of other peculiar animals. All of it was so strange. He couldn’t tell what was real and what was fantasy. Did the large Loth-cat creatures talk here? Or even exist? He wouldn’t even know. It was all so unfamiliar.

And then all of a sudden, there was someone on the screen who wasn’t.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while since this updated, I literally had to rewrite this like four times to even make it acceptable and I gave up...bleh. (plops this half-assed chapter on a tray like a mean lunchlady)
> 
> [I have good stuff planned for this story though, stay tuned]

It was then that Poe Dameron came to the somewhat horrifying conclusion that he was probably fictional.

He wasn’t embarrassed to admit that he had imagined what it would look like more than a few times—being a character in a holovid, that is. A dashing pilot who saved the day.

However, seeing it play out before him was a bit of a different story.

The first thing he had seen was Rey, standing on the sands with a lightsaber in hand, and he had sworn he felt his heart physically stop as he trembled with disbelief. He leaned forward, his eyes tearing up, watching as she leaped over a ship, grace and power in her movements.

She looked so real, he could hear her breathing, he had reached out as if to touch her…

And then the images came too fast for him to process…the falcon, Kylo Ren, the shockingly surreal vision of himself, standing on a boulder next to Finn, and then on some sort of speeder next to C-3PO, his beloved droid BB-8, Leia and (maker save his fanboy heart) Lando Calrissian, followed by a scene of him standing next to Rey and Finn in front of what looked like an enormous piece of the Death Star. There was an ominous laugh, and then words appeared out of the darkness…

_STAR WARS: The Rise of Skywalker_

This was what his life was titled. “Star Wars”—Is that seriously all they could come up with? Could they at least try to be slightly more specific? Out of everything he had seen, somehow that was what was bothering Poe the most. Didn’t all wars take place in the stars somewhere, technically? Who had come up with such a ridiculously reductive name for his entire existence?

He had watched the words fade from the screen as he tried to calm his breathing. He had seen _home_. And not only was it home, but the trailer had also shown things that hadn’t happened yet. And he was there—which meant he had to be able to return eventually, right?

 

***

 

Rey stumbled back up the steps of the theatre, finding her way back to Poe in dark. The Marvel intro was playing on screen, and she had made it just in time.

“Hey,” Rey said, taking her seat, but Poe didn’t even seem to hear her. “Poe?” she asked, panicked. “Poe? Are you okay?”

He was completely frozen in his seat and a thin layer of sweat had appeared on his forehead. Although he was watching the action on screen, it was clear that his mind was somewhere far away.

“Poe?” Rey asked again, shaking his arm. “Are you alright? Are you sick?”

Poe snapped back to reality for a second, his voice trembling. “I’m fine.”

He clearly wasn’t. “We can go home if you want, I don’t mind.”

“Let’s just watch the movie,” Poe snapped back, sinking deeper into his seat. “I’m fine.”

Rey nodded and tried her best to relax and pay attention to the movie. It turned out that the drama was rather hard to follow if you hadn’t seen any of the other Marvel films, so it was probably not the best choice for newbies like Poe and herself. She kept finding herself peeking over at him surreptitiously, only to find again and again that he looked extremely uncomfortable. She didn’t understand what could have happened while she was in the bathroom…their date had been going so well earlier, and all of a sudden something had changed.

Rey felt like she had been punched in the gut. Perhaps it was more important to her that this date went well than she had originally thought.

Well, not technically a date. A thank-you outing. Two roommates hanging out. Whatever.

But was dating him really something she could do? Even if Poe settled in here, and forgot about the version of her that he knew back home, there was still the fact that the whole thing was still a little bit too weird to be real. But God, did she want it to be real.

 

***

 

The walk out of the theater was quiet, and the car ride home was deathly silent.

Rey drove nervously, too disturbed by Poe’s behavior to even turn on the radio as background noise.

“I guess you don’t want to talk about it,” Rey said as she opened the door to the apartment. “But I’m still worried. I can take you to a doctor if you’re not feeling well.”

Poe sighed and collapsed on the air mattress. “I think I’ll just have a glass of water and go to sleep, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Rey said, going over to the sink. “Are you okay for work in the morning? We have to be up at seven.”

“I’ll be fine,” Poe said. “Don’t worry about me, okay?”

“I’ll try,” she said, giving him a weak smile. It was clear he wanted to be left alone, and so she went into her own bedroom and shut the door.

Rey was restless that night, and she knew Poe was too. In the early hours of the morning, she could have sworn she heard him crying.

 

***

 

The first few seconds of the next morning were the best of all. As far as Poe knew, he was still on the Resistance base, but then he remembered Earth, and then he remembered the two minutes yesterday evening that had changed everything.

How did that make any sense? How could his entire life, to an entire world of people, just not be real?

He groaned and rolled over, his eyes still sore from crying. He was so full of conflicting emotions, confusion and fear and pain—that all he seemed to feel anymore was a sort of deep, stabbing frustration.

Rey quietly sneaked past his air mattress and into the kitchen to start up the coffeepot. She was kind enough to not make any conversation with him yet, but he decided to make peace.

“Hey,” Poe said, getting up and stumbling towards her. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“It’s alright,” Rey said, handing him a mug of coffee.

“The food and the movie, it was just…it was a lot of new stuff to take in, you know?”

“Yeah,” Rey said. “I can’t even imagine.”

Rey had such kindness in her eyes this morning, Poe thought, such warmth in her smile as she stirred sugar into her coffee. She was so pretty, and so kind…

He couldn’t trust her. And he probably shouldn’t have from the beginning.

“It’ll be okay,” Rey said, pulling him into a hug. “Things will work out.”

He sighed as he felt her in her arms again, and suddenly he was home again. _But she makes it so damn hard not to…_

Poe suddenly pulled away from the hug, determination in his eyes. “Let’s get to work,” he said, putting his mug in the sink. “There are a few things I need to look into...”


	7. Chapter 7

“Hey,” Poe said, running up to Sarah, the cashier, five minutes into the start of his shift. “A customer is asking for something and I can’t find it.”

“Uh, sure,” said Sarah, who was busy unwrapping a new roll of coins. “What is it?”

“ _Star Wars?”_

“ _Star Wars_ what?”

“Um,” Poe said. “I don’t know, anything.”

“There’s _Star Wars_ everything, Poe. There are  _Star Wars_ toothbrushes. There are  _Star Wars_ oranges, I mean, the guy has got to be more specific.”

“Okay, um,” Poe scratched his head nervously. “Where is like…the largest concentration of _Star Wars_ products?”

“I don’t know, toys, probably.”

“Toys, got it, thanks.”

Sarah looked at him suspiciously. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah!” Poe said, and Sarah stared at him dubiously as he practically sprinted up the escalator.

Poe almost knocked over a shoe display as he ran to the toy section, running through aisles of board games and dolls and other contraptions until he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Kriff,” Poe whispered under his breath, too overwhelmed to know where to look first. His eyes were first drawn to the building sets; boxes of little plastic bricks that could be used to construct anything from an X-wing to a millennium falcon. There were dolls and figurines. There were plastic lightsabers in different colors. It was his entire world, in miniature.

Poe gasped and pulled a package off the shelf labeled _POE DAMERON, 18” ACTION FIGURE SET._ He stared at it in complete disbelief. The package also contained a tiny plastic BB-8 and an X-wing that the figurine could fly around the galaxy in. It was too surreal. He put down the package and leaned against the shelf, trying to catch his breath.

When he looked up, he saw Rey.

He picked up the doll and sighed—no piece of plastic would ever be able to replicate the warmth of her smile, the sparkle in her eyes—but it was her, no doubt. Her hair was in three buns and she wielded a blue lightsaber.

Poe was trying to calm down when a mother and a little boy wandered into the aisle. He acted natural, pretending to straighten the boxes on the shelves.

“This one, mommy,” the boy said, reaching into a bin of stuffed toys. “I want this one.”

Poe watched as the boy reached back behind a plush Chewbacca and a rubber BB-8 and pulled out the toy he wanted. A velvety-soft, cuddly Death Star.

He felt nauseous. 

“Alright,” the mother said. “We’ll get you this one.”

“No.” Poe said, and the woman looked up in shock.

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s _sick.”_ Poe said, trying to restrain himself. “It’s disgusting to make that into a toy for a child. Get something else.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“A lot of people _died_ , okay,” Poe said, suddenly raising his voice. “My parents had friends on Alderaan. And even _he’s_ old enough to remember Hosnian Prime.” Poe scoffed, pointing towards the child, who looked terrified. His mother took his hand and started to slowly back away.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said, quickly shaking his head and remembering. “I’m sorry, I forgot my—” But the people were already gone, and the Death Star had been hastily dropped to the ground.

Poe picked it up and squished it in his hand. A genocidal weapon, reduced to nothing but a cuddly toy for a child. Here, the horrors and tragedies of his world were nothing. They were meaningless. _He_ was meaningless. He threw it at the wall in anger, which only intensified when the toy made a sickening squeak as it made impact.

He grabbed an empty plastic bag, stuffed as many of the toys into it as would fit, and hid it underneath Rey’s couch.

 

***

 

Poe had taken the bus back to the apartment early and Rey had driven home later, staying until closing time to finish a problem with a shipment—and to be honest, to avoid Poe. His strange behavior since their outing had made the prospect of sitting alone in the apartment with him rather nerve-wracking.

It was nearly midnight when Rey got back, but she was still buzzing with energy—she had downed a huge coffee after dinner to stay awake for work, and now the last thing she felt like doing was crashing into bed.

“Hey,” Rey said as she walked in, finding Poe sitting on the floor. He was reading one of her old science textbooks from school, which was his primary way of amusing himself when he wasn’t working.

“Hey,” Poe said, not even looking up.

“My shift was fine,” Rey said, speaking without invitation. “The pretzel-warmer machine thing broke, so I have to figure out how to get that fixed.”

“Huh.”

Rey turned around and rolled her eyes, and just as she was about to walk towards the kitchen for a midnight snack, her patience snapped.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Poe looked up from his book. “Sorry?”

“I don’t get what happened yesterday. And I don’t believe that it was just nothing either, okay?” Rey snapped, angrily gripping the edge of the kitchen table. “I know, obviously, that this entire situation is completely messed up, but ever since we left that movie you haven’t been able to look me in the eye,” Rey scoffed. “And I don’t understand.”

Poe slammed the book shut and stood up, walking towards Rey with a glint of fury in his eyes. He placed his fingers underneath her chin and lifted her face up, studying her with an intensity that scared her.

“You don’t understand? _Really?_ Well then why don’t you tell me the truth?”

“Poe, I told you, I don’t know anything about what’s going on with you.”

“Oh really?” Poe said, pulling a plastic bag out from under the couch. “Then what is this?”

Rey froze in confusion as Poe began madly yanking toys out of the bag, action figures and spaceships and plush toys.

Poe slapped down a doll into Rey’s hands. “Explain this.”

Rey looked down, shaking, at the action figure in her hands: _Poe Dameron…_ the clothes, the face, the name…how could it be the same?

“How…I don’t…”

“And what about this? Huh?” Poe almost yelled, and Rey found herself holding a doll with her face and name on it.

“ _Rey…”_ she said. “Is this?”

“Yes,” Poe said. “That’s her. My girlfriend.”

“But these are _Star Wars…_ what does this have to do with _Star Wars_?”

Poe stopped. “So you do know about _Star Wars.”_

“Well not really,” Rey said. “I’ve never seen any of them…I know they’re famous, and popular, but I just never got around to them. But that’s like…beam me up scotty, the big guy with the mask…hobbits? Is that the one with hobbits?” Poe looked at her blankly and she shook her head. “It must be some…custom doll thing that one of the employees did as a prank. Why else would there be custom _Star Wars_ figures with…”

“Quit bullshitting me.”

“What!?”

Poe cornered Rey against the wall and stared her down. “This doesn’t make sense. _You_ don’t make sense. This has to be a trap.” His eyes widened in anger. “What did you do with Rey? The _real_ Rey.”

“I am _very_ real, thank you very much,” Rey snapped, ducking away from him. “And I’m not here to hurt you. You can leave if you want. I’m not keeping you here.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh?” Rey said. “And why is that?”

“Because,” Poe said, sighing and sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs. “You’re the only link I have to home, and the only way I can figure out what’s going on. And I think you have more to do with this than you think.”

“How?”

“Where I come from, Rey? All that stuff I told you about the other day? That’s _Star Wars._ I’m _in_ Star Wars, okay?”

Rey just started laughing. “So you’re what, an actor? A really intense, psychotic method actor?”

“I’m not fucking around here,” Poe said, dead serious. “All that stuff I told you the other day, about who I am, where I come from…here, it’s fictional. It’s a movie. I didn’t know until we were at the theater, and they showed a trailer, and I was in it, and Rey was in it….I mean, look.”

Poe showed her a photograph at the top of the doll packaging that showed Poe, herself, and another man posed near the top. “It’s not just a resemblance, or a coincidence. Something…something is going on.”

Rey picked up the package and stared at her face. It was her, no doubt. Was there an actress somewhere who was her twin? How was this possible? How did any of this make sense?

“Do you believe me now?” Poe asked. “Do you see why I’ve been freaking out? Something is very, very wrong here.”

“I don’t know,” Rey said. “I’ve never really been able to trust anyone, and now you’re asking me to believe the most unbelievable things.”

Poe took her hand, caressing it in his own as he tried to calm down. “Rey, I need you to believe me. I…I need you to help me figure this out. I need to get home.”

Rey sighed and looked down. “I…I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Like I said, there’s not really any space travel around here. If there was an easy way to get off this planet, believe me, I would have found it by now.”

Poe’s breath shook as he tried to hold back tears, struggled to rein in his frustration. “You have no idea how hard these past few days have been, living with you…” Rey’s heart stopped at the words, waiting…

“And you’re just the same, but in a different time and place. You’re her in _so_ many ways, Rey. And I’m so scared. But I can’t hold you, or touch you, or talk to you about home, and how all of a sudden my life is just…not real. And I don’t think I can take it any longer. I’m alone.”

Rey walked up to him slowly, putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “You’re right. Something weird is going on…and I’ll help you any way that I can. I’m…” she hesitated a bit and then leaned in to give him a hug. “I’m sorry, Poe.”

Suddenly, Poe gripped her, hugging her close to his chest, and sobbed.

“Tomorrow,” Rey whispered. “We’ll find the movies. We’ll figure this out. I’ll help you.”

 

***

 

“Come in,” General Organa said, and Rose Tico walked into the tiny office, a bit starstruck but confident nonetheless.

“Good morning, General.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve returned safe,” Leia said, motioning for Rose to sit down next to her. “As well as that your first undercover mission was a success. But I’m rather impatient to see what you’ve discovered.”

“Well,” Rose said. “The First Order doesn’t appear to have Poe. I don’t know if that’s good news or bad news.”

The General sighed. “And Rey is still not taking his disappearance well, I imagine.”

“No ma’am,” Rose said. “But there’s more.”

“Yes?”

“Since Supreme Leader Snoke died, Kylo Ren has had more influence on the First Order’s objectives, and…”

“And?”

“Well,” Rose said. “They’ll do anything to get their hands on Rey. That’s their primary focus at the moment…and it’s worrying, General Organa, ma’am.”

Leia sighed and rested her head in her hands. “They don’t know where we are,” she said. “For now, we should be safe. Rey should be safe.”

“But General, I was thinking…and it’s just a theory…”

“Yes, Rose?”

“If _you_ were trying to lure Rey somewhere, what would you use as bait?”

Leia froze and met Rose’s eyes, and the fear hit them at the same time.

“Get Rey,” the General said. “Find her! Now!”

Rose rushed out the door and ran straight into Finn.

“It’s Rey,” he said, shaking as he caught his breath. “She’s gone.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHE’S NEVER SEEN STAR WARS? TED, THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE UNIVERSE WHO HAVEN’T SEEN STAR WARS ARE THE CHARACTERS IN STAR WARS. THAT'S CAUSE THEY LIVED THEM TED. THAT'S CAUSE THEY LIVED THE STAR WARS.

“Do you have them?” Poe asked. He was wringing his hands nervously.

“Yep,” Rey said, holding up a Target bag. She had just returned from her evening shift, and had brought home Chinese food for their dinner along with the Target stash. Luckily, Rey’s position as manager allowed her to borrow more than a few things at her own discretion—which included a portable DVD player and eight _Star Wars_ films.

Poe watched warily as Rey got plates and silverware for the food—there was an uncomfortable feeling of tension in the air—a feeling that whatever they saw tonight, they could never unsee ever again.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Poe said, shaking his leg impatiently. “I just need to know.”

“Okay,” Rey said, dumping out the contents of the bag. “There’s eight movies, but only two that seem to involve us in any capacity.” She lined them up in order on the floor, so they started at _Episode I_ and ended with _Episode VIII._ “What do you know about these?”

Poe kneeled down on the floor and examined the DVD cases. “This is our history,” Poe explained, looking at the earlier DVDs in the lineup. “The clone wars…the empire.” He picked up a case and pointed out a woman with her hair in two buns to Rey. “That’s Princess Leia…she’s the general back home, who gives me orders…of course, she’s much older now.” Poe held the cases reverently in his hands, which shook as he turned them over to read.

“So where do we start?” Rey asked. “Should we start at the beginning?”

“We can do the earlier ones later,” Poe said. “For now, we should focus on these last two.”

“Okay,” Rey said, and then stopped. “Wait—are the actors listed on the DVD case?”

“Yeah…” Poe said. “It says our characters are played by…Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Me either,” Poe sighed as he took the DVD for _The Force Awakens_ out of the case. “Also, if these people are famous actors…I mean, particularly with you, who has been living here her whole life…no one’s ever come up to you and said ‘Hey, you look like Daisy Ridley’?”

“No,” Rey said. “And you would think…”

“See?” Poe said, taking a large forkful of lo mein. “Something is up here. It doesn’t make any sense.”

He handed the DVD to Rey, and he grimaced as she slid it into the player. “Here we go…” she said.

Poe braced himself for impact, and watched in silence as words crawled down the screen, detailing the story of a war he knew all too well…

_Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts…_

“That’s me,” Poe said with more than a hint of pride. “I’m the pilot!”

“ _Her most daring pilot…_ ohhhhh,” Rey teased.

“I’m serious!” Poe said. “I went on this mission!”

And sure enough, ten seconds later there was Poe, clad in his old leather jacket and meeting with Lor San Tekka.

“That’s you!” Rey shouted, pointing at the screen. “I mean…that’s really, _really_ you!”

Poe was frozen in disbelief, watching his past play out before his eyes.

“This happened to me,” Poe said. “All of this…I mean, I lived it. Without the music, or these different angles, but…this…this happened to me.”

Rey smiled at him giddily, but Poe wasn’t looking so excited.

All of a sudden Poe began feeling queasy. “This next part…actually…I need to…can you skip it, please?”

Rey looked at him questioningly.

“This was when I got captured…I…I don’t want to relive that, if that’s okay with you.”

Rey gave him a kind smile. “I’ll fast-forward through it,” she said, and as she skipped she saw images of Poe bound to some sort of metal table, a dark mask hovering over him, and she shuddered. He had seen hell, and more than a few times. He didn’t need to see it again.

Soon that part was over, and all of a sudden Poe was replaced with Rey, back in her scavenger days.

“I don’t get it,” Rey said, squinting as she watched the girl on screen put on a pilot helmet. “I mean…that’s _me_ …that’s unmistakably me.”

“I told you,” Poe said. He was leaning forward, enraptured—he had heard about Rey’s life before the Resistance, but he had never really _seen_ it—not like this. He felt his heart tighten in his chest as he watched her meet BB-8 for the first time.

“That’s my droid,” Poe explained to Rey. “He’s the best.”

“He’s cute,” Rey said, smiling.

“Certainly way cooler than the one you have here.”

“I keep telling you Poe, that’s a Roomba.”

Poe laughed, but he couldn’t get rid of the lump in his throat…he was awestruck, seeing his life play out like this, with the music and movement and emotion of a holovid. However much he had struggled in this new world of his, it was one that saw him and Rey as heroes, as people to look up to, as people fighting the good fight. And at least that was something.

He had never felt more homesick.

“We’re back to you now,” Rey said, and then they watched as he and Finn escaped the First Order.

“That’s my best friend, Finn,” Poe explained. “The one who was on the pictures on the toys with us.”

“Oh yeah,” Rey said, and she sat in silence as Poe introduced everyone else—Han and Leia and Chewie and the villainous Kylo Ren. The Rey who lived in Poe’s world started off just as alone as she was, if not more, and seeing her find a family was cathartic in a way that she wasn’t quite expecting.

They sat in silence until they reached the climax of the film, and watched as Rey faced off against Kylo Ren in the snowy woods.

Poe was in awe, and Rey was quiet, shrinking slowly into the couch.

“You must think I’m nothing,” she said under her breath.

Poe sat up, startled, and paused the movie. “What?”

Rey sighed and looked at the screen. “Look at her. She’s _me,_ but…she’s amazing.”

“Yeah,” Poe said. “But you’re pretty amazing too. Amazing just looks different where you’re from, and that’s okay.”

“I don’t know,” Rey said. “I mean, I don’t know if I could have been that badass.”

“Hey,” Poe said, turning to her and taking her hand. “You’ve survived and supported yourself all this time without help from anyone. That’s pretty badass, Rey.”

“Thanks,” she said, curling back into the couch. _No wonder he’s so in love with her._

The credits began to roll, and the two of them sat in silence.

“That was too weird,” Rey said. “I feel weird.”

“Me too,” Poe said. “Really weird. Like there’s too many emotions to pick from, so I’m just…numb.”

“Yeah…”

“So you agree that there’s something going on? That I’m not crazy?”

Rey nodded. “You’re _definitely_ not crazy.”

They looked at each other and silently agreed to put the next DVD in.

“Oh, kriff,” Poe said as the movie started and the exposition began to roll down the screen.

“What?”

“I think this is the mutiny. I can’t watch this.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey said. “What idiot tried to stage a mutiny?”

Poe looked at her blankly.

“Oh.”

Poe already looked extremely uncomfortable as the events of the film began to play out, and Rey pitied him…relieving your mistakes in your own thoughts was one thing, but like this? She couldn’t even imagine.

“Do you want me to fast-forward again?”

“No,” Poe said, shuddering and wrapping his arms around his knees, practically hiding. “I deserve to see this.”

Rey realized that even though she was watching the disastrous mission unfold onscreen, Poe hadn’t actually witnessed these deaths himself—deaths that he had been indirectly responsible for. Watching Paige’s last moments must be unimaginably horrific. Rey squeezed his hand, and tried to offer any comfort she could, as he stared, dead-eyed, at the screen.

“Even though you’re at war, it’s nice, what you all have.”

“What?”

“The Resistance. You’re a family. You have something to wake up and fight for every day. I’ve never had anything like that.”

“You will,” Poe said, working up a brief smile for her. “Anyone would be lucky to have you to fight for.”

Poe moved on from the shame and grief of his mistakes to sheer pride as he watched Rey fight in the throne room—something he had heard about second-hand but had never got to see. She was stunning. She was beautiful, and powerful, and _maker, he missed her so much._

Their eyes widened as they watched the battle on Crait, the AT-AT walkers making their slow progression towards the rebel base.

“That’s where I was heading when I ended up here,” Poe explained. “General Organa told me to circle back and check if anything was still going on there. I never made it to Crait.”

Rey placed her head on Poe’s shoulder sympathetically, and was relieved when he welcomed the gesture, pulling her in slightly closer as he watched the battle unfold.

“That’s awesome,” Rey said, fangirling a little as she watched Poe slide into a trench. “You’re cool.”

Poe shook his head. “If this movie has taught you anything, it should be that I’m anything but cool.”

“That’s not true,” Rey said. “Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone fails sometimes. And you’ve always put the Resistance and your friends first. That’s what you thought you were doing, and so that’s what you did, and everything turned out okay. Your heart was always in the right place…and that’s what matters, right?”

“Okay,” Poe said. “And um…well.”

“Yeah?”

“The first time I met Rey was after this battle.”

“Oh,” Rey said, and felt both of their bodies tense up as the moment approached, her head still resting on his shoulder.

Rey was fixing BB-8’s antenna, when Poe approached from behind her.

_I’m Poe._

_Rey._

_I know._

Poe was staring at the screen, lovestruck, with tears in his eyes.

He hit the pause button on the DVD player. He looked like he had stopped breathing., and put his head in his hands.

“I’m never going to get back, am I?”

Rey scooted in closer, and placed her hand over his. “You don’t know that yet, Poe.”

“I’m never going to see her again. She must think I’m dead. I’m as good as dead, being this lost.”

“That’s not true. There’s still hope.”

Poe picked up the DVD case and ran his fingers over the faces on the cover. “I don’t even exist here. And I…I really, _really_ miss her. I miss _home._ ”

Rey sat frozen on the couch as she watched him wipe away silent tears, and when she realized she was out of words to comfort him, she pulled him into a hug.

He melted into her arms—slowly at first, apprehensively, but then he seemed to give in; Poe held her tight to him and buried his face in her neck, and she could feel him sobbing silently.

“Poe?”

He pulled away to look at her, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t understand how you can be so much like her. It’s strange, missing her and then seeing you every day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, it’s not your fault,” Poe said smiling a little as he calmed down. “I just…I need to learn to accept that I’m probably not getting back.”

Rey sighed as she propped a pillow up behind him. “Is there anything I can do?”

“You’ve done more than enough already,” Poe said. “But if I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Poe, I’m…again, I can’t even imagine what you’re…”

“Really, Rey, don’t feel bad,” he said, getting ready to go into the bathroom to brush his teeth. “I’d be wandering around on the streets if you hadn’t taken me in.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Rey said, sighing. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Rey,” Poe said, and smiled at her, the old warmth returning to his eyes.

Rey was left on the couch, staring at the stack of DVD cases in front of her; the spaceships and aliens and strange clothes…

She really only had the faintest conception of who she was dealing with, didn’t she?

 

***

 

Rey could hardly sleep after sitting through the movies with Poe—before she watched them, he had seemed like such a loose construct to her—his stories felt disconnected and strange, but now she _knew_ them. She probably knew him better than a lot of people in his own universe. She had seen his heroism, his suffering, his friends, and the cause he and his family had given everything for…

She was exhilarated by him, warmed by his very presence, and she couldn’t shake the sense of him sleeping on the air mattress outside the door… _in love_ was a loaded phrase to use, especially in regard to a man who was deeply in love with somebody else.

But the tension was still there, and the invisible string between them had been as taut as ever as they sat on the couch earlier that evening.

Rey sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes as she looked over at the alarm next to her: it was two a.m, and sleep was beginning to feel hopeless. Energy bounded through her limbs, and she felt an urge to run outside in the dark; in the middle of the road, until all of her worries had been conquered by exhaustion.

Instead, she stood up and walked outside her bedroom, not sure exactly what she was going after.

What she found was Poe, still awake and pacing around the kitchen by the light of her reading lamp, only wearing a pair of her old sweatpants that she had lent him.

“Hey,” Rey said, afraid of startling him. “Can’t sleep either?”

Poe shook his head. “How can I, after all that?”

Rey wandered over towards him, suddenly feeling very exposed in her loose tank top and pajama shorts; she could have sworn she sensed his eyes raking over her body as she turned around to fetch a glass of water.

“It’s a lot to process,” Rey said, turning back and making an effort to look Poe in the eyes as opposed to staring at his bare chest, the warm glow of the lamp illuminating all his various scars.

“I’m just feeling very alone,” Poe said. “I’d give anything to have a piece of home again. Not just as a movie though, as…as something that _mattered._ ”

Rey moved closer and gave him a weak but sympathetic smile. Knowing that there was nothing she could say to ease the pain he felt, she placed a gentle hand on his arm. Poe tensed at her touch, she saw something dark flash across his eyes, and the room shifted.

“You don’t know how hard it’s been not to touch you all this time,” Poe admitted, his voice lowering. “ _I’m going crazy_.”

Rey brought her hand up to his cheek and ran a finger down his jawline, tracing the stubble that had grown there. “You can, you know,” Rey said. “You can touch me.”

“It’s not fair to you,” Poe said, pulling away. “I can’t separate you from her. If I touched you I’d be…I’d be thinking of her.”

“I don’t care,” Rey said. “I want you anyway...and I can be that piece of home for you, if you want.” She placed her hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat speeding up under her fingertips, the raised curve of scars from battles far away. “I’ve been wanting you to touch me since you first moved in here…”

Poe’s breath caught in his throat as he brought his hand down to her waist, tracing her hipbone with his thumb. “That would be wrong in an unprecedented way, wouldn’t it?”

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

“Might shatter the space-time continuum.”

“It’s shattered enough as it is.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake Poe, just—”

Poe wrapped his arms around her and pressed her into the kitchen counter, kissing her as he desperately ran his hands over every inch of her body. Rey let out a moan as he moved down to suck bruising marks into her neck.

“Bedroom,” she gasped. “Come on.”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him behind her bedroom door, clambering to pull off her tank top and shorts as Poe pressed her into the bed, groaning as he ran his calloused hands down her naked body, his eyes widening as he studied every detail up close.

“Is it…?” Rey asked nervously, scared to bring the other girl up in this moment, but the wonder on Poe’s face was unquestionable.

“Exactly the same…” Poe affirmed. “Down the the last freckle…” he kissed down her stomach, and smiled. “And just as beautiful too.”

He moved back up again to kiss her and Rey sighed, finally getting the chance to tangle her fingers through his dark curls—it had all happened so fast—her life had been so mundane, so ordinary, until this man had fallen from the stars, war-torn and lost, and so full of adoration for her, even if it was probably misplaced beyond belief.

“Are you sure about this,” Poe whispered, lining himself up at her entrance. “Like I said, I don’t know if I can separate my feelings and…I need to know it’s okay.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind,” Rey said, leaning up to kiss him again. “I just need you…” she sighed, wrapping her legs around him. And it was true, she really did—somewhere behind the haze of lust she knew that this was a mistake, probably for both of them, but she also knew that denying their attraction to each other was driving them both out of their minds, and they needed to get this out of their system, at least once…

They both moaned as he entered her, and from there it was frantic, and desperate, the frenzied result of weeks of holding back from each other.

“Rey…” he sighed into her neck as he moved. “ _Rey…”_

She remembered, somewhere amidst the ecstasy of the moment, that she really couldn’t know if it was her name he was calling.

She found, increasingly these days, that she didn’t really care either way.

 

***

 

The next day, Rey was restocking the lingerie section.

She ran her fingertips over the silk and lace and satin, and considered purchasing a few things for the first time in her life. She held a green lace teddy up for size, and giggled at the sight. Rey was more of a plaid shirt and panties kind of girl anyway—she could be sexy in her own way.

Rey smiled as she opened another box of items to hang up—she had something—and some _one_ to look forward to tonight, and that was a good feeling. She felt as if she was walking on air.

Well, she did until she turned around to see her own face staring at her, and holding a gun to her head.


End file.
